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Can't Speak More Highly About Ironwood Ridge Wrestling

Submitted by RossRNun

on Sat, 02/13/2016 - 20:42

I've made a few posts about the team dad worked with when he went to Arizona to get out of the Pennsylvania cold during the winter. He first went to Sunnyside, which was a top program, typically ranked top 20 in the country, but it was about an hour or so from his home in Oro Valley, so he contacted Ironwood Ridge. I'm not sure how long he volunteer coached at Ironwood Ridge, but it had to have been ten to fifteen years. The team won three state titles, then placed top five as they were bumped up to the top division the last two years. When dad was diagnosed with the tumor two summers ago, he obviously didn't go back and missed last season working with them. When we had the Celebration of Life, the team's coach flew in for it and came with a former wrestler's parents.

The team held their own celebration in AZ (read about it in this post), which my cousin and her family attended, which was really nice. She couldn't say enough about the families and how much dad meant to them.

This season, Ironwood Ridge had a real strong team. They also renamed one of their tournaments in his honor and they added his name to the back of their team t-shirt, as state regulations would not allow them to put his initials on their singlet. The coach sent us some t-shirts and we were very glad to have them.

This weekend Ironwood Ridge had their state individual tournament. They took first place in Division 1, giving them four overall titles in roughly eight years. Sunnyside, the first school dad helped finished 2nd.

I congratulated Coach Berrier by email and he replied with these words and photo:

It is the boys with their state trophy and Ray's Hall of Fame jacket in the middle. we had it displayed in the parent section during the finals so the boys could see it when they looked into the stands. Thanks for sharing him with us.

Came across this picture on FB:

Can't thank everyone enough for the respect and appreciation they showed for him.